Ecks of The Gaming Dungeon takes a look at the Xenosaga series for the Playstation 2 in his ProCon series of reviews.
VGChartz's Issa Maki: "I finally have a proper designation akin to what I've always referred to internally as 'the line that must be crossed' or 'The Line', for short – ludonarrative dissonance – the separation from a video game's story in relation to its gameplay. Why isn't PETA all up in Mario's grill for jumping on turtles and killing fish, or charging Samus Aran with the extinction of the Metroid species? Ever notice how fire has that habit of making bosses in Resident Evil stronger? Read on my friend, for I endeavor to imbue you with the ability to engage in basic queries concerning the concept."
Monolith Soft president Sugiura Hirohide talks about how plans for Xenogears 2 failed to come to fruition due to Square’s investments in the film industry.
Unfortunately that movie almost killed Squaresoft, hence the reason to merge with Enix. Can only imagine (and cry about) some of the great games we missed out thanks to that movie.
Kill a sequel to a great game I would have bought day one to produce a shitty movie.
somewhat calling BS on this claim because the company went on to produced higher budget games on multiple platforms around the same time on top of making an acquisition. they went on to make the bouncer (which also flopped in reviews) then they made sequels to Musashi and FF10. which each of the games took more of their time to make than the original Xenogears. so you could have very well preferred a sequel to Xenogears instead of any of their other projects running at the same time as well.
right. they were making new IPs at that time. The Bouncer was months before Spirits within.
Kindom Hearts came a year after. i do find it more ironic that The Bouncer was more important than Xenogears 2. or even FF10-2 than a Xenogears sequel.
"Xenogears 2 Didn’t Happen Because of other "meh" projects."
sums it up.
XG wasn't a huge commercial success though. It saw most of it's popularity later after it got digital releases. Even now, i'd say it's probably more of a cult classic than a well loved mainstream game.
Back then, Square was riding high off Final Fantasy 7's success, and they were really trying to push that franchise. They sunk a lot of money into FF:SW, which they never recouped, which did indeed effect their overall game's production, but if XG had been popular, they would have milked that as well.
XG scope was huge. Even bigger than FF7. It was originally pitched to be FF7 in fact. They allowed him to make the game, but wanted to go a different direction with FF7. When he couldn't continue, he left, and made games of even bigger scope with Xenosaga. A series of 3 games which also were not a huge commercial success, and had very high production values for the time. Namco eventually cut the cord, because it wasn't making enough money.
Your point?
Spirits Within practically tanked the company. Made Square the soulless AAA remake machine it is today.
The point is that they didn't have the money to make Xenogears 2?
FF7 remake is soulless? what are you talking about?
If the remake is relying on being a remake while fundamentally changing everything its relying on, then fun or no, have to call it as I see it. Especially post projects like FF13 where they didn't know what they were doing.
They know what they're doing this time, but what they're doing is playing on nostalgia. Still could have been its own thing sans specific FF7 trace-over, and should have been self-contained rather than a new sub-franchise who's further entries will only continue to dip into a drying well.
Hell, the point is that they could probably make Xenogears 2 today as a lower budgeted isometric similar to its original style, but they wont or can't go what would effectively be backwards.
If you look at it like the creator wanted to go on and make something akin to Xenosaga, then I can see why Square would have said no. Don't get me wrong, this is by far my absolute most favorite series ever, in all it's spiritual forms, but the scope of these games is massive, complex, and the director will spend money to make the game he wants if he can get it. His resources and what Nintendo allowed him when he did the Nintendo games in this "series", was more limited, and it shows within the games themselves.
I can easily see why Square wouldn't want to spend the money on them, especially after taking a huge loss on FF:SW, but I'm not sure that the movie was the sole reason they said no, nor am I sure that SE would have said yes if it hadn't just taken a huge financial loss.
After all these years, despite the rather strong cult following of this series, it has yet to ever been reintroduced through Square, and as you say, Square is a souless AAA remake machine that is more than happy to milk a popular franchise.
This may be a blessing in the end though, because I can't imagine Xeno games without the creator of the series. He seems to have a very unique way of blending all the various themes together into a compelling and nuanced story that can also make people think beyond their own world view.
Graphically the spirits within was ahead of it's time, but it just was not a Final Fantasy by any stretch of the imagination. But I did my part to support it as I bought the dvd. So glad to know on my end I did everything possible to get a Xenogears 2
FF:SW did have some base FF themes in it. But yeah, it certainly was nowhere close to what one would expect from a FF game. It was more like a side quest. It was also kind of a dull movie, trying too hard to be thought provoking and proving they had some damn good animators and graphics artists, but not enough time being interesting or exciting.
The Xeno "Saga" spans six games and has established a legacy of being the Greatest RPG Series of All Time, surpassing even Final Fantasy
"and has established a legacy of being the Greatest RPG Series of All Time, surpassing even Final Fantasy"
I love it how some people sensationalizes everything by talking in absolutes, lol, this is according to who? Who decided that? Who made it official? Don't get me wrong, It is a great series, but so is the Legend of Heroes, FF, Persona, SMT, Dragon Quest, Suikoden, Star Ocean and many, many more.
Agreed suikoden 2 is the sht. Xenogears is one of my favorite rpgs for sure. Prefer ff7 to both of them. Slightly.
Chrono trigger..
Squaresoft is the matter of RPGs.. Xeno is okay, I hate games where I create my character, they are soulless. I prefer much more games where the story is centered around the main character who has his own personality..
Has the author never played any other RPG before? That's the only way I could see someone saying this is the best RPG series of all time.
Replies(2)
Can they not release it on Xbox and PlayStation?
On Topic: what boundaries did it push or new mechanics? I have not played it. I have played xenogears which was awesome
The xenosaga series on ps2 is my favorite series of all time. Gears was great. The nintendo xeno games are really good.
But despite that, I still wouldnt call them the greatest among all that exist. At least not to the point where it's not debatable.
Not only is the best RPG series of all time, but one of the best franchises in the existence of entertainment overall. Period.
From a gameplay perspective, you’d make a valid point. However the “entertainment” medium as a whole would beg to differ. Nonetheless, their deep and fun mechanics throughout as well as exploration is excellent. Where both adults and kids can get through and enjoy the experience
that's an opinion and everyone has a right to have one
RPG is a Vague term so many games come under this and we all have our favorites
I actually agree with you on this one. The term “best” or “greatest” is very subjective.
of all time? There is some stiff competition. Not to mention you say rpg so now that opens up western rpg games which is a whole different beast when it comes to the argument because vast groups of people don't even like jrpg's and prefer wrpg's
Not only that, the best final fantasy games outshine xenosaga in my eyes while the worst ones aren't as good as the worst xenosaga games so basically it all depends how you look at it. There is also the games for tales of being more consistant and dragon quest too.
I guess what i'm trying to say is maybe if you toned down your claim a little and said it was one of the best then maybe we wouldn't be arguing, but then again, you wouldn't have much of an article to bang out would you?
Tales? They are nice and yes consistent but I wouldn't put in anywhere near final fantasy or dragon quest.
